MOLLY'S PROGRESS

Research for my new novel Molly Bowes took me in all kinds of unexpected directions. I set out to tell the story of nineteenth-century Gibside and the Bowes Museum through the adventures of one of the children born to Stoney Bowes in debtors' prison. But it grew like Topsy, taking Molly from the Peterloo Massacre to Crowley's Crew, Joseph Cowen and Tyneside radicalism, to Garibaldi and European political plots! Much of the story draws on the amazing and fascinating international connections of the area where I live.

Molly's Progress: Below is a series of links and references to books I used in the research. The order in which they appear is dictated by Molly's story. To see pictures of the real people on whom characters are based, click here. For places, posters and artworks mentioned in the novel, click here.